Universal Music Group has announced a strategic partnership with Nvidia aimed at using artificial intelligence to reshape how music is created, discovered and experienced.
The collaboration, first reported by Bloomberg, brings together the world’s largest record label and a leading AI technology company, marking one of the most significant alliances yet between the music industry and the AI sector.
Under the partnership, Universal will work with Nvidia’s Music Flamingo, an advanced audio-language model designed to interpret songs beyond traditional metadata such as genre or tempo. Instead, the companies said the technology will help listeners discover music through emotional context, narrative structure and cultural meaning.
In a joint statement on Tuesday, the companies said the new tools are intended to deepen fan engagement while improving discovery opportunities for emerging artists.
“This is an era where a music catalogue can be explored like an intelligent universe — conversational, contextual, and genuinely interactive,” said Richard Kerris, Nvidia’s general manager for media and entertainment.
As part of the deal, Universal and Nvidia plan to establish an incubator that will allow artists to help design and test AI-powered creative tools. The initiative is aimed at avoiding what the companies described as low-quality, generic outputs that have characterised some early AI-generated music experiments.
The partnership reflects a shift in how major record labels approach artificial intelligence. Initially viewed as a threat to intellectual property, AI has increasingly become an area of collaboration rather than confrontation.
In 2024, Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group sued AI music startups Suno and Udio over alleged copyright infringement. Since then, the industry has pivoted toward negotiated settlements and partnerships. Universal and Warner have reached agreements with Udio to explore AI-driven music creation platforms, while Warner has also partnered with Suno.
All three major labels have additionally licensed portions of their catalogues to Klay, a startup developing an AI-powered streaming service that allows users to remix and recreate songs.
The Universal-Nvidia partnership signals a broader recalibration, as record labels seek to influence how AI tools are developed and deployed, rather than risk being sidelined by them.
